The present invention relates to hand-held tools for selectively ejecting a succession of individual electrical components in a predetermined orientation for loading on a circuit board, or similar applications. More specifically, the invention relates to a tool adapted to hold a magazine containing a plurality of individual electrical components and to feed the components sequentially from the magazine for ejection from the tool in a desired orientation.
For many years electrical components such as capacitors, resistors, transistors, diodes, integrated circuits, etc. have been provided in standardized configurations and dimensions for assembly with printed circuit boards, or in other applications. Each component is normally provided with two or more electrical leads which are inserted through appropriately spaced openings in the board and soldered to the conductor surrounding the opening on the opposite side of the board. Although the use of standardized, solid state devices on printed circuit boards reduced greatly the space and time required to produce an equivalent "hard wired" circuit, manual loading of individual, often very small, components on a printed circuit board can still be a time-consuming process.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide a hand-held tool adapted to eject electrical components of specified shape and size in a desired orientation in response to selective manual actuation.
A further object is to provide a tool adapted to hold a magazine loaded with individual electrical components, and to eject the components from the tool in sequence as they are gravity fed from the lower end of the magazine.
Another object is to provide a manually operable tool which will hold a supply of stacked, individual, electrical components in a first orientation and feed the components sequentially through the tool for ejection therefrom in a second orientation.
A still further object is to provide a novel, manually operated tool for removing individual electrical components from a magazine and ejecting them in a predetermined orientation, said tool being relatively simple and inexpensive, yet reliable and durable in use.
In a more general sense, the object of the invention is to provide a manual tool which facilitates the assembly of electrical components with supporting structure, such as printed circuit boards.
Other objects will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.